Russia Sets Date for Start of Evan Gershkovich Trial

A court in Russia said on Monday that the espionage trial of the imprisoned American journalist Evan Gershkovich would start next week and that the proceedings would be held behind closed doors.

The first hearing, set for June 26, will come almost 15 months after Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained by security agents in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, about 900 miles east of Moscow. After spending more than a year in a high-security prison in Moscow, Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is likely to be transferred back to Yekaterinburg to stand trial.

Mr. Gershkovich, who had worked in Russia as a journalist for various publications for more than five years before his arrest, his employer and the U.S. government have denied the charges against him. The State Department has designated Mr. Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which effectively compels it to work for his safe release.

The announcement of a trial date represents a significant step in Mr. Gershkovich’s legal case, which has been continuing in parallel with talks between Russian and American security services for a possible exchange.

The Russian authorities have suggested that they could be open to a prisoner swap for Mr. Gershkovich, but only after a verdict is handed down in his case. An espionage trial usually takes about four months in Russia but can take up to a year, according to lawyers who have worked on such cases.

Last week, Russian prosecutors said they had finalized the espionage indictment against Mr. Gershkovich. They said that “under instructions from the C.I.A.” and “using painstaking conspiratorial methods,” Mr. Gershkovich “was collecting secret information” about a factory that produces tanks and other weapons in the Sverdlovsk region.